


Love Really Hurts Without You

by softly_speaking_valkyrie



Category: Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Veronica, College AU, Cute, Dancing, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing, Lesbian Heather, Love, Party, Romance, Women Loving Women, mcnamawyer - Freeform, night out, queer romance, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 16:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18211043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softly_speaking_valkyrie/pseuds/softly_speaking_valkyrie
Summary: Moving to and enrolling at Brown is proving a little lonely and more boring for Veronica than she planned, until she's invited to a house party with an unusually 70s theme. The music is older than she is and keeping up with her morals, she doesn't feel like drinking much. Without company and without a need to be intoxicated, the party moves a little slowly, until Veronica realises there's a Heather enrolled at Brown too, one she's more fond of than she realises.





	Love Really Hurts Without You

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse the potentially bad start, I wrote the beginning when I wasn't that focused or in a good state to write. But hopefully it doesn't detract from the fic.

A class friend had invited Ronnie to the house party, on the promise that it would be something fun and inherently 70s inspired. From the sound of the stereo as she approached the property, the second part was ringing true at the sound of Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac beginning. At least if the company were a bust, she could sit back with a rum and coke and simply let Stevie Nicks serenade her into a drunken stupor.

Veronica knew it would be the same kind of party as she had experienced in Westerberg – guys creeping on girls, lubing them up with alcohol so they’d get laid. Ronnie was so far over that now that the very thought of drinking so much close to a guy repulsed her gently. She was still attracted to men, she thought she always would be, but the idea of meaningless sex or a relationship made her want to hurl.

She still donned her beautiful blue blazer-like jacket, the one the Heathers had given her, and while it was still steeped and stained in memories of her, she had had too many good ones with it to not wear it again. In many ways, the blue had saved her, and she couldn’t bring herself to be rid of it.

A plastic cup hit her hands almost immediately when she found her way into a more secluded part of the house, where there was a bar and a few already-drunken majors hobbled over the front of it. Luckily for her, there was a seat unoccupied. She took it and remained there for as long as she could. Her class friend, Laura Benning, was nowhere to be seen. Veronica could hear a flurry of laughter from the main living room, where the crux of the party was and began to look around the bar. Of course, the only company she had were the two boys with their heads on the top of the bar, already wishing they were at home. Veronica stayed with them for the moment as time began to hit her slowly for the first few sips of the drink. As soon as she was halfway down and ZZ Top had morphed into Dire Straits, she decided that it already wasn’t agreeing with her, and left the red plastic cup for a can of soda from behind the bar. The boredom was setting in quicker as she remained, the two boys around her not making a stir.

Still, Laura had not found her, and Ronnie didn’t dare move rooms, not at all, she didn’t want to see the rest of the house this time, she was content to remain with the drunken boys and peruse the confines her mind, to work through issues that still remained.

“Veronica?” Ronnie heard coming from behind her.

As she swivelled on the rotary stool, her eyes were met with the incredible yellow and the light, frilly blonde hair she’d been subjected to every day at Westerberg. The beautiful smile in lipstick of muted pink and the luminous yellow scrunches in the hair made Ronnie’s lip curl into a grin of delight.

“Mac? My god, it’s you!” Veronica called out, standing from the stool and almost running to wrap her arms around the blonde and yellow Heather. “Heather? What are you doing here?” She asked incredulously.

Heather McNamara was all beautiful smiles and incredible perfume. Looking into her cup, Ronnie could either make out water or vodka but smelled no alcohol on Mac’s breath and smiled as she just looked at her, into her eyes and seeing her again. They’d spent the previous summer getting close, away from the terror that was Westerberg, gently bringing Heather Duke into the fold of rational thought and healthy friendships. After Chandler, Ronnie could tell both Mac and Duke needed friends – Martha and Duke were both enrolled in the University of Philadelphia, but Veronica didn’t know McNamara was enrolled at Brown like her. The captain of their (not so) humble high school was the most welcome sight in the world to Veronica as she embraced her again.

“I’m studying Law... Daddy pulled a couple of strings but my grades were good enough, even considering... Ya know?” Mac smiled, looking incredibly healthy. Her complexion was less haggard than a time before, and her smile was not false at all, at least not now for seeing Ronnie here and in her beautiful blue. Heather tugged at the corners of Veronica’s blazer in excitement.

They were both lost for words as a beat formed between them, Veronica’s chest full of excitable air and Mac holding herself back as she drank in the image of Veronica, here before her. Heather’s heart began to bounce, ecstatic and barely able to be contained. They were seventeen no longer, and Heather wondered now if she should retain the part of herself no one had known apart from her parents.

The words her father had always told her repeatedly in her head as she held Veronica’s blazer excitably with her teeth biting her bottom lip.

_ Don’t ask, don’t tell. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Don’t try it; no woman is going to ever want to kiss you back, Heather. Girls don’t love girls like that. Don’t ask, don’t tell. _ And when she’d cry, it would always be the same. Heather tried not to think about it at all, but looking at the floor brought it all back.  _ Smile for me, Heather. Or are you gonna whine, whine, whine all night? C’mon who’s Daddy’s Girl? Good girls need a man; I know someday you’ll learn. Don’t whine, whine, whine. You’ll find a guy, and that baby girl is why don’t whine all night! _

“Heather?” Veronica brought her back, snapping her attention to her beautiful sapphire eyes, her smile still warm. “Do you want a drink?” She was asking, and without realising, Heather saw they were holding hands. Either she or Veronica must have reached while the haunting thoughts of her father swirled in her mind in reaction to Veronica.

At Westerberg, she would have declined, but this was Brown – no father here, no ‘Daddy’s Girl’ here, not ever again. Feeling bold with her hand in Ronnie, Heather smiled. “Do you know where I can get a soda? I don’t wanna drink tonight,” she settled, getting rid of her water. The sugar rush of old American chemical pop would be enough to make her hyper with Ronnie tonight.

She didn’t want to seal away the part of her she loved, the part of her that loved women and only women. Heather could not stand boys like that, she never had, she could only hold an eye for girls and women. She’d crushed on Chandler once upon her time, a few others in Westerberg but never acted. The freeing feeling of the turn of the decade, and seeing Veronica here, looking hotter and lovelier than ever, Heather felt the tug on her heart and the desire to finally come out, free herself and act upon her swelling attractions for the blue-coloured former-Heather. When Ronnie tugged on her hand to pull her to the bar, snapping up another can of soda, both of them were grinning wider than any other time since arriving. Ronnie was suddenly inspired, whipped up in a feeling of incredible inspiration to have fun with Heather – she didn’t really know if she was stealing her friend away from anyone, Veronica simply needed to have fun with McNamara.

She forced the can into Heather’s hand and leered. “It’s so good to see you!” She cheered as if the music was getting louder. It was,  _ La Grange _ was thick with guitar solo and the thumping jive of the college students bouncing was making the house vibrate.

Heather blushed a little more and took a mighty gulp of the soda. “You look beautiful, Veronica! Really! You’re looking great!” She tried to flirt but also tried not to make her intentions and attractions obvious. Maybe Ronnie would rebuke her, tell her to get lost if she knew right away that she was into her romantically and sexually.

“Still the same asymmetrical face, huh?” Ronnie teased, looking wired from the sugar as she scooted closer to Heather.

They both chuckled and Heather paused a little awkwardly, beginning to get lost in Ronnie’s eyes and Veronica in hers. The bright hazel-yellow of Heather’s eyes were small stones of beautiful topaz, not like cat-eyes, but a succulent pair of lemon drops to the eye. Her lashes with lavish, her cheeks pale but still looking so much better than the time Veronica found her in her bathroom. Thinking of that, Veronica planted her hand over Heather’s and pulled herself closer to the yellow-oriented beauty.

“How are you, Heather?” She asked with a gravitas of severity in her words that tugged on Heather again.

Mac leaned in and placed her free palm on the two holding hands. “Much better... And even better, seeing you, Ronnie,” she confessed, her lip sliding between her teeth again as she took in Veronica’s aroma this close. The blue-oriented Literature student smelled of juniper and summer fruits, the fizziness coming from her breath and tickling the tip of Heather’s nose.  

The tracked changed, from The Jacksons to Billy Ocean, and Heather looked into the other room with the corners of her lips curling in beautiful elation. Veronica couldn’t contain her smile when she saw Heather leading by example. The blonde grabbed her hand and pulled her from the bar, a bubbling ecstasy inside of her fizzing to break free as her top blew. The song was beautiful, one she’d loved as had her mom; Billy Ocean’s  _ Love Really Hurts Without You _ and only now could she see the wonderful irony that was its relation to her situation. Her heart was already yearning powerfully for the woman with her, and Ronnie’s smile, her beautiful hair and the pleasant aroma radiating from her making her buzz with love.

“Do you wanna dance?” Heather asked, her teeth grinning.

“Huh?” Veronica asked, almost unable to hear over the music as the party turned it up. They must have liked it; Ronnie found it almost odd that so many college students enjoyed music this old.

“Dance? Do you... wanna dance?” Mac responded, her father slowly berating her in her head. No woman wanted to dance with or kiss another in the way she wanted. He’d drilled such thoughts and such heteronormative behaviour into her since she was a child. The luscious tones of Billy Ocean himself made her chest heave as she touched Veronica’s hand again gently, only gracing her fingers with her own.

Ronnie noticed it enough to look at their hands, making Mac recoil a little, but the English student flinched forward and interlocked their fingers again, smiling up at Heather. “I’d love to dance, Heather...”

They bopped and jived into the main room, slightly out of the way of everyone else, so that not many would see them even in peripherals. Heather was a little reserved with so many people close but could see they were all preoccupied with themselves by the time Veronica was grabbing her hand again and quickstepping in time with the music. Her movements were like water, so fluid and so beautiful – her small skirt twirled beautifully around her when she spun, cleaving Heather’s grasp and then coming back to her, bringing their bodies close and then apart again. Heather found herself and her rhythm before long, focusing only on Veronica and how extraordinarily beautiful she was. The lights captured the subtlety and the light tones of her slightly darker hazel hair. When Veronica looked back at Heather, she found her blonde hair glowing, the yellow of her outfit like a solar body, creating coronas of beautiful cream, bright yellow and wonderful light. Her lipstick, soft and light rose, became a beacon to Veronica as her mind ran away with her before long. She found herself coming closer to Heather each time they came together, their chests colliding and their lips moving close enough to meet.

Veronica’s body felt open, her heart a little excited the more she looked at Heather, her face making expressions she didn’t even think she was capable. Thoughts dawned on her that Heather made her feel happy – seeing her so suddenly made Veronica realise how much she cared for her, how amazed she was to see her, how happy and relieved she now felt with her here, their hands coming to each other like magnets and making them both feel better. Veronica saw the faint undertones of blush under Heather’s cheeks and wondered if she was blushing too. Her face was incredibly warm but all she cared for was dancing with McNamara. She could feel the heat inside of her, the burning will she had to be with this woman now. Heather was wonderful, as Ronnie knew; she was smart, compassionate now, flawed, gentle and incredibly beautiful and funny.  Veronica found herself beaming as she twirled Heather around, spinning herself afterwards and coming in close.

Their foreheads touched, their noses bouncing off of each other and their lips even closer.

When Mac parted from Veronica, she began to lose herself completely. The song lyrics infected and intoxicated her, and she began to lip-sync along with them as Billy Ocean’s voice covered the entire house. All the while she looked Veronica in the eyes, as if singing to her with a voice not her own, but all the words were very much prudent for how she felt about her old classmate.

Love really did hurt without Veronica, Heather knew and realised as her body shivered with her inside. She was in three minds and couldn’t stand it anymore.

Veronica came in for her again, her body doing all the flirting without her necessarily realising she was doing anything at all. It made Heather yearn for her, incredibly so as she buckled up the courage, and when they met once more, she pushed herself and her lips a little more forward. They collided with Veronica’s and suddenly, Heather was kissing her, a deep and powerfully with her heart exposed and obvious.

Stepping away, Billy Ocean still playing but the momentum completely was frozen in the shock that Heather had just kissed her, Veronica was shocked to the core. Mac began to look embarrassed and mortified but everything was clear to Veronica.

Heather liked girls and only girls, but Veronica fathomed herself. She didn’t just like boys, she liked girls too, and she absolutely adored Heather McNamara.

They came back together and this time, Ronnie kissed Heather, cupping her cheeks desperately and putting her lips to her own again, with the same power, depth and even more passion than before. The realisation she loved her made Veronica emboldened to make sure Heather knew. They moved into the recesses of the house where no one would find them while the party raged and Veronica could only attempt to kiss Heather thoroughly, not letting up, and Heather’s face growing bright red.

It was a shock revelation, but both could not stop smiling when they parted. Heather felt like the world had given her all she had ever wanted. What made it all the better, what that it proved her father wrong, and one day, she’d have to tell him. Veronica had definitely wanted to kiss her back.


End file.
